Current Canadian Marvels

Biodome de Montreal (opened in June, 1992): The Biodome houses thousands of live plants and animals, all in downtown Montreal! This requires that the dome itself provides light, heat, cold, water, and humidity to mimic the natural world. To do this, engineers developed a computer monitored technical infrastructure that is honeycombed throughout the building. This includes: lighting which combines various wavelengths to recreate the solar spectrum from sunrise to sunset; and hydraulics which produce water to accommodate freshwater and marine ecosystems from tropical to arctic temperatures. Because building landscapes from natural mediums would be too weighty for the building, rock and ground areas were designed from innovative materials.
Photo Credit: NASA	Canadarm (first used in space in 1981): The Canadarm is a Remote Manipulator Systems designed and built in Canada by Spar Aerospace for the U.S. Space Shuttle. Design and production of the first "arm" cost $100 million. It allows astronauts to perform release and retrieve activities in space while remaining on the flight deck. The arm's maximum payload is approximately the size and weight of a loaded school bus, but on earth it can't even support its own weight! Canadian engineers are currently designing and building new versions of the arm (called Mobile Servicing Systems) for the International Space Station, Alpha.
The Confederation Bridge (P.E.I.) (opened in 1997): The bridge reaches across the Northumberland Straight between Borden-Carleton, PEI and Cape Tormentine, N.B. It's 12.9 km stretch is the longest continuous marine span in the world. The curved design of the bridge was planned to ensure drivers remain attentive and to reduce the potential for accidents that experts believe happen more often on strait bridges. The surface of the Bridge is a long lasting bituminous mixture which minimizes vehicle spray during wet weather.
	Invention of the Neonatal Transport Incubator: Biomedical engineer and PEO Gold Medalist Dr. John Smith, P. Eng., watches as a baby is placed into a transport incubator at the Hospital for Sick Children's Neonatal Intensive Care unit. Dr. Smith is the hospital's Director of Medical Engineering, and designed the Incubator.
The CN Tower (opened in 1976): Toronto's skyline is distinctive in part due to the tall spire of the CN Tower. Considered the world's tallest freestanding structure, it is 553.33 m high. It is made of enough concrete to build a curb from Toronto to Kingston. The sway resistance of the antenna at the top of the tower is 1.07 m; doesn't sound like much, but imagine if you were at the very top swinging a metre back and forth!	Photo Credit: Skydome
Photo Credit: Skydome	SkyDome (opened in 1989): The SkyDome is the world's first, only, and therefore largest fully retractable-roof stadium. The Dome can provide a climate controlled environment or an open air stadium. The roof consists of four panels; one fixed, and three moveable. This roof is made of steel trusses covered by corrugated steel cladding, which in turn is covered by a PVC single-ply membrane. Interestingly enough, the stadium has 1280 toilets!
Hibernia Drilling Platform (oil pumping began in November, 1997): Built in the Jeanne d'Arc Basin in the Atlantic Ocean offshore of Newfoundland, Hibernia is Canada's largest offshore drilling project. The Gravity Base Structure (GBS) weighs 550,000 tonnes, and is the first of its kind, being dubbed the 8th wonder of the world! The GBS is mated with the Topside to complete the platform. All this required careful engineering due to the harsh sea conditions, depth of water, weight of the structure, and worker safety concerns.
Photo Credit: Ontario Transportation Capital Corporation	407-ETR Toll Highway (first started taking tolls in 1997): The Highway 407 Express Toll Route is a multi-lane, electronic toll highway running 69 km across the top of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). What makes this highway special is the electronic toll technology involved. Engineered for efficiency, overhead tolling frames are stationed at all on and off ramps and automatically record the beginning and end of your trip on the 407. If you are using a specially designed "transponder" in you vehicle, your use is logged automatically. If not, license plate recognition systems identify your car. Invoices for tolls are sent through the mail.
Tar Sands Project (ongoing): The tar sands of Alberta are being developed to extract bitumen and change it into synthetic crude oil for Canadian markets. The Athabasca Oil Sand is the world's largest single oil deposit, however technical knowledge to economically exploit this resource is still on an improving scale. Extraction of the oil is done using two methods, surface mining, and in situ (in place) extraction. However roughly 1800 kg of oil sands must be mined to produce one barrel of synthetic crude oil! Engineering technology in extraction and transport are improving though, and oil sands mining in 1996 represented about one fifth of Alberta's total crude oil production.

Contemporary Engineering

Photo Credit: Giffels Assocaites Limited

In fact, computer and systems engineers are in such demand that there aren't enough of them graduating from universities in Canada to fill the positions available. Canadian companies are not only recruiting Canadian engineers, but also highly trained individuals from foreign countries.

Here are some classic and contemporary engineering fields:

• Aerospace
• Agriculture
• Automotive
• Biomedical
• Chemical
• Civil
• Electrical
• Environmental
• Industrial
• Marine
• Materials
• Mechanical
• Mining
• Naval
• Nuclear
• Optical
• Petroleum
• Systems (Computer)
• Structural